


Overload

by vamprav



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sentinels and Guides Are Known, F/M, M/M, Podfic Welcome, Sentient Atlantis, Sentinel/Guide Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 11:32:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15750825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vamprav/pseuds/vamprav
Summary: Sarah Bright came online during zero night of BMT, she managed to hide it until the Graduation Ceremony. The next thing she knows she's training to be a Queen and finds out that her Guide wasn't even in the galaxy. Suffice it to say, she was not pleased and she needed a higher security clearance.





	Overload

**Author's Note:**

> So I got kind of pissy at the world in general and then I listened to the radio show where Keira talked about what would happen if John went back in time and trolling the fuck out of Sumner. Then I decided he needed a daughter, that he didn't know about, and this happened.  
> This was pure catharsis fic, I had so much fun with Sarah and as always podfic is welcome.  
> Matthew Sheppard is Keira Marcos's character, not mine.

Sarah took a deep breathe and straightened her spine a fraction more. Her pants were too tight, her head hurt from the constant sensory input and her ears were buzzing with the faint stereo feedback that was just on the edge of her hearing.

“So, I have one more question for you,” the officer in front of the flights paused for emphasis, “Are you ready to join the ranks of the worlds greatest air force?”

As one the trainees drew breathe and as one they yelled, “Aim high!”

CRACK!

“Fly-"

Gunshot. That was a gunshot!

The female trainee next to Sarah screamed and Sarah clawed at her control, trying to stay conscious of her surroundings, trying not to zone. She managed it by a hair, the skin of her teeth. She’d gone seven and a half weeks without a zone, she could manage the next ten minutes.

CRACK!

A trainee went down, howling in pain and clutching his leg.

Where was the shooter?

The trainees all turned as what felt like one and began to sprint to the rally point. Sarah followed at a more sedate pace, hanging at the back, glancing over her shoulder at the crowd as they rushed off the stands in terror rather than joy. And she spotted him, at the very top of the bleachers, holding a handgun.

That was incredibly stupid. Why would he bring a handgun? Then again, it was probably the only thing he could sneak past the gate. But he was also shooting into the air for the most part which made no sense, unless…

CRACK CRACK CRACK!

More gunshots but from a different direction this time. It was coming from where they were running to and Sarah heard the pain filled wail and thump of bodies hitting the grass.

Sarah saw red as she heard a familiar voice scream in terror. It was one of the girls from her flight, a girl she hadn’t liked all that much but she was still hers, still a part of the greater whole that Sarah had adored with her every breath and heart beat. These assholes would not take them from her.

She felt something inside her shift and twist itself into a new shape. There was a fox running by her side, the same fox she’d woken to on her first day here. Black as the space between stars with endless green eyes. There was something different about it now. It was taller, coming up to her waist at the shoulder rather than barely standing at mid calf and instead of one tail trailing behind it like a banner there were three.

Kitsune she registered with an almost detached air and stopped running, patent leather shoes skidding across the damp grass. Time slowed to a near crawl which made vague sense as she took in the new information that was being presented to her. That wasn’t a fox like she’d first suspected but a kitsune.

_ Kitsune queen, trickster queen, bound to those who rule. Hide my queen, bide your time dear queen, and prove them all for fools. _

It was an old rhyme, one most children learned on the playground from older children. There hadn’t been a Kitsune Queen since World War Two and she’d died in the napalm attack on Tokyo.

“I think you have the wrong person,” Sarah told the Kitsune, which gave her an exasperated look, “I’m not Japanese, I’ve never even been to Japan.”

The Kitsune raised an eyebrow, as if to say “so, you think that matters?” Sarah sighed in exasperation, she was not going to win this argument and she knew that but it never hurt to try.

“I’m a Queen then, I take it?” Sarah asked as a trainee began to run past her in slow motion.

The Kitsune nodded and looked at her expectantly. Sarah took a deep breath and held out her hand.

“If there’s any fancy words I need to say I don’t know them,” Sarah stated, “but I could really use your help with this, even if I’m about to get us into so much trouble with Queen Garcia.”

The Kitsune’s legs tensed and Sarah tensed as her spirit animal jumped right into her chest. It was an interesting sensation, warm and slightly fuzzy and melty all at once. The shift that came after wasn’t painful, not like all the movies made it out to be. It was hot and uncomfortably and bone was grinding against bone but it was all strangely numb as she melted into the form of her Spirit.

The Kitsune shook herself, trying to get the weird tingling out of her system. It was strange, the world was so much clearer but dim at the same time like someone had given her tinted glasses. She took a deep breath and let go of time.

There was a second of glorious chaos where everyone took note of the five foot tall Kitsune in their midst and then the field fell abruptly silent. Everyone looked to be in shock as the Kitsune padded through them towards the source of the angry, loud noises, tails waving behind her like a battle flag.

Gunshots, her human half supplied helpfully and her spirit half made a small, scared noise. It had heard gunshots before, when it was young when there human half was just fifteen years old and then there had been the fire.

The Kitsune shook this off, she had a job to do. There was a threat to her tribe, not her true tribe but the temporary one that had sheltered it through the past few months, and that threat had to be eliminated.

The crowd parted in front of the Kitsune as she made her way closer to the treaty, tracking the smell of gunpowder and unwashed male. There was the sound of another gunshot going of and the Kitsune howled in pain as a bullet tore through her right foreleg.

And then everything went blurry around the edges for a time. The rage and pain coalescing into a storm of power and blood.

When Sarah came to she was human again, lying on her back in the grass with a blanket laid over her to preserve her modesty. Her arm was throbbing in time with her head and a girl from her flight was pressing her blues shirt down onto the bullet wound to staunch the bleeding.

“Anders?” Sarah croaked and the older woman started.

“Hey, Bright, you good? You shifted in the middle of our graduation ceremony and took out both of the gunmen. Good job, I think the cat might be out of the bag though.” Anders said with a week smile.

Anders was a guide, a weak one but a guide nonetheless. She and the other guides in Sarah’s flight had helped her orient herself after the disaster that had been her first day. They’d sensed her and confronted her about the fact that she had come online and excepted her decision to try to tough it out until tech school.

“Don’t you mean fox?” Sarah asked and wiggled her eyebrows, startling an laugh out of her flight mate.

“Trainee,” a different voice said and Sarah craned her neck to see Master Sergeant Hawthorn glaring down at her, “if I asked you when you came online would you tell me the truth?”

“Uuuuum, Sir, Trainee-”

Sergeant Hawthorn held up his hand to stall her, “Trainee, you are a Queen Sentinel, I do not need a reporting statement from you.”

“Yes, sir,” Sarah stuttered, “I came online during zero week?”

“Was that a question or a statement, Trainee?” the sergeant asked.

“Statement, sir.”

“What the piss, Trainee? Why wouldn’t you tell anyone?”

“I was embarrassed, sir, and by the time we hit first week I had everything under control.”

Sergeant Hawthorn took a deep breath in, let it out and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Trainee, do you have any idea how dangerous that was?”

“Yes, sir.” Sarah said.

“And you did it anyway?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did anyone else know?”

“...No, sir.”

The sergeant raised an eyebrow. Sarah stared at him with the wide innocent eyes of someone lying there ass off. He snorted in amusement.

“Make sure they don’t do it again, you could have gone into a comatose state without the proper training. There is a reason why sentinels get transferred into the Sentinel Corps as soon as they come online in BMT.” he said.

“Sir, with all due respect,” Sarah began, “I’d rather spend seven and a half weeks in a sense rich environment than four months in a sensory flat one. I would have gone insane.”

“Well said, youngling,” a rich female voice said.

Sergeant Hawthorn turned and saluted, “Queen Rogers, to what to I owe the pleasure.”

“At ease, Sergeant,” a blonde woman in a neatly pressed blues skirt and heels said as she approached, “Seb and I were here to see his niece graduate, we didn’t expect to see a Kitsune Queen.”

“Ma’am,” Anders and Sarah said with a nod.

“Can I ask your name, younglings?” The queen asked.

“Sarah Bright, ma’am.” Sarah said.

“Camilla Anders, ma’am.” Anders said.

The queen nodded. “I’m Amelia Rogers and my King is over with law enforcement, giving a statement. We figured that you wouldn’t wish to talk to them while in you birthday suit after your first shift.”

“Is it always that…” Sarah began and then tried to find a word, there wasn’t one really.

The queen chuckled, “Oh, don’t worry, I know what you mean. And no, it doesn’t but you get used to it. I’m here to ask if you want to serve your apprenticeship under me rather then Queen Garcia. She is going to be… displeased as it is and you do  _ not  _ need that kind of emotional turmoil around you while you develop your abilities.”

“Apprenticeship?” Sarah asked.

“Yes, you didn’t think we all woke up with everything we needed to know in our heads, now did you?”

“No, but I woke up knowing were my Well is, I just assumed everything else would show up when I got there.”

Queen Rogers snorted, “I woke up knowing my territory was Washington DC but I was trained in London. When your King comes online you’ll need to find either a shaman or another King for him to train him. Where is your Well anyways? It will help if I can prepare you for the territory and language of the people. There has many a Queen who has had to cross international borders to be at her Well.”

Sarah hesitated for a second before she opened her mouth. “It’s classified, also I’m probably going to need a higher security clearance.”

**Part 1**

Sarah sat on the floor of her room, legs crossed and open files spread around her like a giant fan. She was frowning down at her tablet, at the mission report she had open. It was… grim.

Wraith.

The word alone made her blood boil and she couldn’t quite tell why. Until she’d read the rest of the report. They ate people.

Dear gods, they were dealing with space vampires. Sarah had seen that movie and it didn’t end well. This looked like it would end even worse than most horror movies because these things wouldn’t stop, not until the earth was under there control.

With shaking hands she tapped through a couple files until she got to the population estimates. They made her wince, the Pegasus Galaxy had a couple million natives, if that. Thus the hibernation cycle the mission reports had described but if they got to the Milky Way…

Billions. Billions on earth alone.

Sarah had lived in New England for most of her life but she had been an avid watcher of nature videos. One of the videos that had stuck with her was one of desert locusts flying across the sky, consuming everything in their path. That was what was going to happen if the Wraith got to the Milky Way and  _ her _ Well was the one thing standing between the Wraith and the end of humanity as a whole.

There was a knock at the door and Sarah looked up, a bit startled by the noise.

“It’s open,” she called and the door swung open to reveal a short haired blonde woman in a flight suit, “How can I help you, ma’am?”

“I’m Colonel Samantha Carter, I was just wondering if anyone had showed you the mess hall yet.” The woman said.

Sarah blinked at her, looked down at her watch and winced. She hadn’t realized the time.

“No, they haven’t and I should probably eat, it might help with the jet lag.” Sarah said and stood. “Is it alright if I’m in civvies?”

“That will be fine. I just got off duty and I don’t think you have a brief until tomorrow.” Colonel Carter said.

“No, tomorrow at seven is when I have my next meeting, just let me put some of this away. I really don’t want some of this getting into the wrong hands.” Sarah said and began collecting the files she had scattered around her.

“What were you reading?” the colonel asked.

“Well,” Sarah said as she bundled all of the reports into the safe she’d put under her bed, “I started with the consent forms, non-disclosure agreements, and informational packets I needed to sign. Then, I asked for the Atlantis mission reports. They kicked me out about two hours ago and told me to bring all the reports back before my flight shipped. What’s the mess serving?”

“I think it’s meatloaf night. And did they just seriously let you take the reports with you?”

Sarah grinned and snapped her fingers. The safe vanished behind a shimmer of red that coalesced into an illusion of a wooden box. Colonel Carter looked incredibly impressed.

“Guide or descendant?” She asked, genuine curiosity glinting at the corner of her eyes.

Sarah chuckled and straightened from a crouch in one smooth, fluid movement that was reminiscent of a big cat. It was mesmerizing but in the same way ballet was or a well choreographed fight scene rather than reading as anything sexual. It spoke of power and precision and knowledge of one’s body that most didn’t possess.

“Queen Sarah Bright at your service, ma’am,” Sarah said, head held high and for a brief moment it was as if you could see the Queens who had come before her.

Strong, confident, competent woman. Some with crowns and some without. A lineage going back generation upon generation.

Colonel Carter blinked and it was gone, leaving only a young, teenage girl in its wake. She licked her lips, trying to connect the few Queens she’d seen with this thin, wiry, black haired strip of a girl who’d just cast an illusion like it was nothing. Like she’d been training for years rather than the few months it had to have been since she came online.

“Where’s your King?” She asked.

Sarah sighed wistfully, a deep sadness washing over her. “On Atlantis.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” the colonel started to stutter out, hoping against all hope that this woman’s guide hadn’t been killed because if he had there would be hell to pay.

“It’s fine. He’s still alive,” Sarah waved it off, “I can still tell that much but I won’t know more until the Gate opens again. He was just fine the last time I felt the gate open but he’s on the cusp of coming online and if he does and I’m not there...”

The colonel hissed through her teeth. King Guides didn’t just cause empathic events like most powerful guides did when they came online without there sentinel in close proximity, they caused physical ones as well. The most famous had to have been Pompeii but there had been others. A King in Japan had caused an earthquake, Cernobal was another recent example, and if any King ever came online in California the western coast would become more waterlogged very quickly. She could only imagine what an online King could do to a floating city made of Ancient technology with a mostly unstudied power source at its core.

Sarah walked up to the door and they started moving down the hall towards an elevator. They passed a few marines in relative silence before the colonel spoke up again.

“So, saber tooth or nundu?” She asked.

Sarah snorted, “No, but nundu would be a closer guess.”

“Sphinx?” Colonel Carter guessed.

“Didn’t you read my file? And you ask, yes, Atlantis is my Well.” Sarah said.

“No, I found out that there was a young woman with the ATA gene being sorted to Atlantis a week after she’d been read in and I figured I’d come meet her,” She said.

“I’m not a child genius, Colonel, I’m just a mechanic who happened to come online in basic. There are at least a hundred girls and boys just like me who came online last month alone,” Sarah said.

“Call me Sam, we both know Queens don’t have rank,” Colonel- Sam said as they got into the empty elevator, “And how many of those hundred are full sentinels? How many are girls?”

Sarah thought it over for a minute. Then shot Sam a suspicious look. Sam just cocked an eyebrow at her.

“How online are you?” She asked, “I can’t sense you, normally I can unless you’re shielding and I wouldn’t be able to sense you at all then.”

“Just enough to help me fly,” Sam said with a shrug.

“Vision then, and hearing.”

“The vision people normally jump to right off the bat but not many get the hearing.”

“Inner ear,” Sarah said as they exited the elevator, “it controls balance and if you’re hearing is turned up a notch or two so’s your coordination.”

“That sounds like the voice of experience,” Sam commented.

The Queen sent her a withering look, “Be glad you only got a notch or two, I had to deal with my entire perception of my center of gravity changing while learning how to march. I was just glad I wasn’t the girl in the back who couldn’t get her arm swing down.”

“I bet you were the best at marching by the end of it though.”

“No, that was the girl in the back who couldn’t get her arm swing down,” Sarah smirked at the irony of it as they entered the mess hall.

It was in fact meatloaf day which caused Sarah to sigh and look like she might want to bang her head against a wall. She didn’t particularly like meatloaf, there was too much chance of it hiding too strong flavors depending on who did the cooking. Then again the food was fresh rather than saved from a different meal and spiced for flavor so it was probably alright to eat.

“The food must have been interesting,” Sam commented.

“Oh, it was, especially when we ended up eating last in the DFAC,” Sarah commented and then paused with her fork halfway to her mouth, “I didn’t look at the supply list. I can’t believe I forgot to do that, I don’t even know how well supplied they are.”

“Eat first,” Sam interrupted, years of looking after Daniel in the middle of a research binge springing to the forefront of her mind as she saw the panic starting to form in the other woman’s eyes, “you’ll do no one any good if you pass out from hunger.”

Sarah hesitated and then began to wolf down her food as fast as possible. Sam sighed, she should have expected that. Daniel had done the exact same thing until that one incident with the beef stew and the chicken that had been in it for some unknown reason. There host had not survived the experience, Daniel’s sentinel was a holy terror under normal circumstances and her going feral was a very different experience.

~~~~~

The next day Sam got to sit back and relax as Sarah proceeded to verbally rip every single person the IOA meeting into tiny bloody pieces. It was awesome and she’d been holding her laughter in for the last half hour. Jack had given up trying get in her way about ten minutes in and that was an hour ago. The Japanese representative, one of the few people who had immediately backed down when faced with a downright furious Queen Sentinel, was taking notes.

“And another thing,” Sarah snarled, voice growling around the edges, “There’s no birth control on the supply list. Did you just expect sex not to happen? Gods damn it, at least a tenth of the people on that mission were female and they’re all in a high stress environment. ‘Blowing off steam’ wouldn’t be too far off for most of the people I know and that’s not even factoring in a Bonding pair. The pheromone load alone would be enough to tempt most into finding a quiet corner, and there’s been THREE BONDINGS SINCE THEY GOT THERE!”

The French representative sniffed. “If had any self control-”

Sarah laughed in her face, “If you’re about to rant on and on about your nomadic, nameless god spare me the details. I know sex isn’t an immoral act outside of wedlock, it’s a natural process that most indulge in from time to time. I may be waiting for my King but I’m no innocent, I’ve been reading romance since I was fifteen and I’ve known how sex worked since I was ten. It’s my choice and that’s that.”

“What can a little girl know about the workings of a city?” The Russian representative asked.

“Most  _ little girls _ born with Gifted genetics are taught how to run a city. It’s an optional class but most Center’s offer them for no cost. Granted, most  _ little girls _ aren’t about to embark on a cross galaxy journey but the basics are still there. Most  _ little girls _ know how much it takes to feed a hundred people for any length of time. Most  _ little girls _ know living in a place with no lights or bed degrades the mind. Most  _ teenage girls _ know to pack extra tampons to a sleepover and condoms on a date if they want to get lucky because he probably won’t have one. Most  _ women _ know what it’s like to go hungry, by it by choice or by circumstance.” Sarah ranted.

Several representatives tried to voice complaints and were silenced with a glare. Sarah was calm now, or as calm one could be when still visibly pissed off.

“ _ I _ am basing all of this off of what I know because  _ I _ am Queen.  _ I _ am the rear guard, the protector, the watcher. The Alpha wages war while  _ I _ guard the Well. My word is law because  _ I _ am the one who makes sure your bed is warm and your belly full. If you  _ dare _ to harm my tribe, my people, my children  _ I  _ will cut you down without a second thought. A woman brought you into this world,  _ I _ can just as easily take you out of it.”

There was complete silence save for the scratching of the Japanese representatives pen for a few seconds before the sound of soft bells rang through the air. Sarah blinked and she reached into her pocket to pull out a small black phone. She tapped it and stood.

“General, may I please be dismissed? I have a medical appointment I need to get to,” the Queen said.

“Go ahead, Queen Bright, we appear to have much to discuss in the coming days, and don’t forget that you asked to go to the Outpost before you leave.” Jack said, eye his coffee like he wished it had spontaneously decided to add whiskey to its chemical makeup.

Sarah nodded a good-bye to everyone, “General, Colonel,  _ representatives _ ,” and glided out of the room like she was approaching a throne.

“She and McKay are either going to get along like a house on fire or blow up Atlantis,” Jack grumbled.

“Do you know what her spirit is?” the Japanese representative asked.

Everyone in the room turned to look at her. It was the first time she’d spoken beyond introductions.

“No, it’s not in her file,” Jack said.

“She’s red, that’s all I know,” Sam added and continued at Jack’s curious look, “I had dinner with her last night before she scampered off to go look at the supply list. She can cast illusions, i saw her do it.”

“Oh, how fortunate,” the Japanese representative gave a tiny secretive smile, “I would dearly wish to speak with her in the coming days. General, I think now would be the best time to broach the topic of my country’s scientists joining the Atlantis expedition.”

**Part 2**

“Sarah Bright?” The nurse asked the waiting room.

Sarah stood, turned off her tablet, and tucked it under her arm. She followed the nurse down the hall until they reached a small examination room. The doctor was already there which made her blink in mild confusion.

The nurse handed her the file and left, shutting the door behind her as she went.

“Alright, Sarah, I’m Doctor Fraiser and I’m going to be going over your test results with you today. Along with the standard disease screening and ATA test you requested a paternity test. Is that correct?” Doctor Frasier asked.

“Yes, my mother was never able to find out who my father was and I figured that since you’re doing ATA research you’d be more likely to have his DNA on record,” Sarah said as she sat in the chair across from Doctor Fraiser.

“So, you have already managed to confirm that you do in fact have the ATA gene?” The doctor asked as she flipped through a few pages in the file she held.

“Yes, General O'Neill has this weird stylus, pen thing. The damn thing lit up like a Yule tree when he handed it to me,” Sarah rolled her eyes, remembering the looks on the IOA’s faces when that had happened.

If she was just a Queen Sentinel, even if a Queen was never just anything, they could have delayed her. Or, well, they could have tried to delay her arrival on Atlantis. They would have failed spectacularly but they would have failed none the less. But since her ATA expression was so strong they couldn’t risk not sending her.

Atlantis needed all the gene carriers they could convince to walk through the gate. From what Sarah had been able to gleen from the mission reports the city was slowly sinking under the pressure of sustaining so many people on millennia old systems that needed to updated by someone who actually knew what the fuck they were doing. There were only two, maybe three people on Atlantis who knew anything about civil engineering, which was why half of Sarah’s flight was Sergeants and Airmen who’d worked in plumbing, electrics, and other such fields.

They all had the ATA gene, she’d made sure of that.

“Alright, firstly, you are a vision of health. No serious diseases, no chemical imbalances, all I can see is an excess of vitamins and minerals,” Doctor Fraiser said.

“I’ve been taking supplements, it’s a tip I picked up from an ex-navy friend of my mother’s. The excess helps when you get to somewhere you won’t be eating properly for a bit, granted that advise was for BMT but I’m also developing more rapidly than most Queens. I need the extra fuel,” the Queen said.

“Any idea why?”

“Most Queens come online at fifteen, I have three years of catching up to do and my Spirit knows it. I only came online when I did because of the gate opening, if it hadn’t I might never have come online,” Sarah said and felt the deep empty pit  in her heart tug at her. She hadn’t been aware of it before she came online but it had always been there and the thought of going through life without knowing she was missing something was abhorrent.

“Ah, next then, your not pregnant,” Doctor Fraiser said and chuckled at Sarah’s look of mild horror, “that test is mandatory, sweetie, pregnant woman don’t go through the gate if we can help it, we don’t know how the wormhole would effect on the fetus. And you’re ATA gene is almost off the charts, stronger than almost every other gene in our database. It’s also weirdly complex, I think you got the gene from both sides since part of it has the markings I would expect from those with the Irish strain and the other part has some of the characteristics I would normally see in an eastern Asian strain.”

“My mother’s great-great grandfather was a quarter Japanese,” Sarah said, she’d found that out after she’d become a Queen because the Kitsune tended to follow a very specific blood line.

The ancestor in question had been the bastard child of a younger son who had fallen out of favor years before he’d had the dalliance that had finally gotten him disowned and a prostitute who had taken one look at her suitor’s true nature and run for the hills, or across the sea as the case might be. It had been a fascinating story that had ended with the son of the union marrying into a very Irish family who did not particularly approve of their daughter’s new groom.

When the link had been discovered the current head of the family had sent her an elaborate ceremonial fan with a kitsune painted across it in midnight black. It had been heavier than she had expected and upon closer inspection she had found the reason why. The ribs were made of metal and came to sharp points that barely extended past the rim. It was a war fan, a woman’s war fan, it was an expensive gift to say the least, especially since she could detect Dragon psionic energy all over it. That energy made it priceless, Queens didn’t cast for others often, too territorial for that.

“Ah, do you remember the family name?” Doctor Fraiser asked.

Sarah hesitated.

“I won’t disclose it, the scientist’s here are just trying to form a gene map, we’re trying to trace the origins of each gene strain. Most come from Ireland but we’ve encountered some that hale from other areas of the globe, Japan being the most noteworthy,” the doctor said.

“Trying to find out what Ancient sired what line,” Sarah murmured, “Yata, the family was Yata.”

Doctor Fraiser took down the information and then paused, “As in the Yata no Kagami?”

“Yes,” Sarah said, “and I’d advise you only to give that information to those whom you trust to keep it silent. There hasn’t been a Yata Queen in over a hundred generations and my distant relatives are slightly miffed to say the least. There’s a Kusanagi on Atlantis isn’t there?”

“Yes, Miko, she’s one of the scientists Doctor McKay hand picked to go with him on the Expedition,” Doctor Fraiser said, trying to get regain her bearings, “Now onto the paternity test, we did find a 98% match in our database.”

“Good, who is he?” Sarah asked, face lighting up with a bright smile.

“Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard,” Doctor Fraiser said in a rush, “he’s the Alpha Sentinel of Atlantis and XO of the military.”

Sarah went very, very still and the room warmed around her. Doctor Fraiser flinched when she saw the anger in the Queen’s eyes. Family oriented was a bit of an understatement when it came to female Sentinels in general and Queens in particular. For a Queen to learn that not only was her guide on a city plagued by Wraith but her father, who she’d never even met, was there as well.

“Is there anything I need to sign?” Sarah asked.

“No,” Doctor Fraiser said.

“I’m going to go run for a few miles then. Have a good afternoon, ma’am.”

“You too, Queen Bright.”

\-----

Sarah’s feet slapped against the treadmill one after another after another. She’d been at it for a while, barely managing to get her gym gear on before she crawled out of her own skin. Her Spirit was pacing around her treadmill, chittering at anyone who came near her. No one could see it but the instant veer off course that anyone with even a modicum of psionic sensitivity was much appreciated.

The asshole on the elliptical behind her staring at her ass on the other hand was just annoying. She could smell the lust oozing out of him in goopy waves that put a bad taste in the back of Sarah’s mouth.

She was no stranger to the smell of lust or the smell of sex, she’d been through BMT after all and then been bundled off to the Roger’s house who were incredibly invested in each other. But the interest of the man behind her was both unwelcome and bordering on utterly creepifying.

If she ignored him, maybe he’d go away, like he hadn’t done for the last ten minutes. He had to be either completely socially inept and a complete psionic null to still be ogling her at this point.

Fuck it. She was done with the asshole, she was pretty sure the panting wasn’t just from the leisurely ride he was taking and she could smell drool. Gross, just gross, all of the gross.

Sarah hit the off button and let her pace slow until she could step off. She grabbed her water bottle and moved off towards the padded area where most people would spar. Amelia had gotten her into yoga while she’s been in training and it was a really good way to settle her mind and the Kitsune. She really needed it by now, the Spirit was practically growling by now.

The asshole got off his bike and Sarah felt her eyebrow twitched in irritation. She managed to get to the edge of the mats before she whirled around to glare at the marine who was way too close to her.

“May I help you?” she asked in a voice as frosty as she could possible manage it.

Of course it was a marine, why wouldn’t it be a marine? Sarah’s opinion of marines might have been clouded by every single recruitment ad ever but she still knew how the world worked. Her mother had made her look up all the stats before allowing her to look at a recruiter.

“Yeah, sweet cheeks,” the marine drawled in the sleaziest voice she had ever heard and she suddenly had the urge to bang her head against the wall, “I was thinking about bringing you back to my room for coffee after a bit of a workout.”

And then he WAGGLED HIS EYEBROWS!

“No,” Sarah said flatly.

The asshole marine blinked at her and then turned up the “charm” to eleven. Sarah felt slightly nauseous and her Spirit started actually barking in fury. Which would probably bring every single Gifted in the mountain running.

“Oh, come now, sweetheart,” the marine drawled and reached for Sarah’s face.

She slapped his hand away carelessly in a gesture that melted seamlessly into her flipping her braid over her shoulder. Then she turned and started heading towards the locker rooms. Her level of done had just reached boiling point and blowing up at a marine in the gym was probably a really bad idea, especially since “sergeant” was printed across his right pec in tiny white lettering.

Punching a sergeant in the face was a supremely bad idea and while Sarah was pretty sure she could get away with it without getting even slightly yelled at she was trying to follow the rules when she could. That was part of the reason she’d stayed in BMT after she came online, the other being the prospect of sensory deprivation and how supremely unappealing that idea was.

He grabbed her arm and Sarah stopped mid step. She turned slowly, the Kitsune starting to flicker as she inadvertently tapped into it. She could feel the fangs already starting to form in her mouth and this was going to end bloody if she didn’t stop it now.

She could feel the anger and hatred and corrupt lust that was this man’s base personality. It made her sick, made her feel dirty like she need to take the hottest bath in existence and gardener’s soap to scrub it away.

No one touched a Queen without consent, no one.

There was a reason the Queens of the past who were born into slave holding nations tended to either stir up or join uprisings. Half the time it was because they were born slaves and came online traumatically. Weak willed women did not become Queens but those nations that held slaves learned very quickly that meek, quiet, and surviving at any cost did not equal week.

Sarah had always found it funny when her history classes had read from the diaries of old white men who couldn’t for the life of them figure out why their daughter’s were passed up for the blessings while the savages they fought again or the people they owned or the commoner girl who worked in the bakery came online. All the supposedly “civilized” nation of Europe had never been able to figure it out. Subservience to a man, any man be it her father or her husband did not a Queen make.

Anyone who touched a Queen, a true Queen without her permission typically wound up regretting it. In the past they’d normally end up losing the limb but Sarah tried to pride herself on being more civilized than that. There were far more satisfying and permanent ways to ruin someone's very existence in this day of modern medicine and court orders and public shaming.

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to unhand me,” Sarah said and let her claws grow on the hand who’s arm wasn’t currently being held captive by an asshole marine.

“Oh,” he tsked and tried to tug Sarah into him but she refused to budge, “don’t be like that, darling. Stronger than you look, aren’t you?”

The Queen gifted him with a long, slow blink that seemed to question the man’s intelligence and finding it nonexistence.

“Let. Go.” Each word was its own sentence.

The man cooed. COOED! What the ever-loving hell?!

“Now I don’t think you want me to so that.”

Sarah grinned to reveal incredibly sharp canines and she growled. The sergeant’s eyes went wider than she’d ever seen a person’s eyes go before. And then he looked into her eyes and fell into those green pools like a man falling unconscious.

He crumpled to the floor.

“You are an idiot,” Sarah said to the man on the floor, “you don’t fuck with illusion makers you fucking idiot.”

“What did you do?!” an incredibly scandalized voice asked from the door.

“General,” Sarah said, turning to smile warmly at General O’Neill and clapped her hands together, “I’d like to report a sexual assault.”

“No, really, what did you just do?” he asked, looking vaguely hopeless, like he’d just lost a battle with a force of nature. Or like he’d just realized he had a weapon of mass destruction in his mountain.

**Part 3**

“What did you do?” Jack asked as he stared down at the incident report Sarah had just handed over.

“Taught him a lesson, he’s going to think twice about going after a woman again, if he wakes up,” she told him matter of factly, “How are you still hung up on this?”

“You haven’t told me what you did!” the general squawked in indignation.

“Oh, that’s easy. I separated his negative side from his energy, made an illusory copy, gave it a turbo shot, and set it loose in his head. By the way does anyone in this mountain know you’re a Guide or is that some big secret?” Sarah asked, head tilting to one side in curiosity.

“No, and why would you do that?”

“Because he’s a douchebag, I thought that much was obvious. Plus he needs a taste of his own medicine or he’ll never learn.”

Jack looked longingly at the table like he was thinking about banging his head against it, “If I asked you to wake him up?”

“I’d tell you that it’s none of your business what a Queen does with her power be she bonded or unbonded and if you tried to pull rant it would be well within my right to have you up on charges.” Sarah told him.

“I thought so,” Jack sighed and opened up his bottom desk drawer to pull out a bottle of incredibly good whisky, “I had to ask. Now I can say I honestly made an effort to get the bastard out of that trance and call it a day. Can anyone besides you break it?”

“Other than him? No,” Sarah picked at her t-shirt, “the only one who might be able to would be another Queen and they wouldn’t even dream of stepping on my toes over this. You really shouldn’t be drinking that, sir, it’s going to fuck with your abilities and your stomach.”

“I know but right now it just might be worth it because I now need to call the Queen of DC and tell her one of my marines tried to force himself on a red Queen,” Jack said sourly.

“Ah, Sam told you about that then,” Sarah commented, “And you don’t have to.”

“You’re Nomadic, until you bond, and connect to your well, you’re still under her purview,” Jack unscrewed the cap and took a small sip from the bottle.

Sarah’s nose wrinkled as the liquor was promptly returned to the drawer, “I mean I already called her.”

Jack actually did bang his head against the desk this time, “Why? Why would you do this to me? I still need to call her, I have to, it’s protocol and if I don’t follow this particular rule I will be asked to resign.”

“She’s not going to yell at you, I called her so she wouldn’t. If I didn’t Amelia would probably have hopped on a plane with her King and come down here just so she could whoop your ass. Her Spirit is a honey badger for a reason,” She said with a smile.

“That is not an animal I’ve ever heard of in association with a Queen before,” Jack muttered and picked his head up off of the desk, “If you don’t mind me asking what’s yours? Your an illusionist and the only Spirit I can think of with that power is a puca and I know for a fact that the Irish Queen in Dublin is the Puca’s bearer.”

Sarah’s smile grew predatory, “Pucas aren’t red and they’re shape shifters, not illusionists. But if I told you that would be telling now, wouldn’t it?”

Jack’s eyes narrowed to slits as she continued to give him that tigress’s smile, “Why are you such a smug brat?”

“Because the world is full of assholes and I enjoy making them eat their own tongues. I’m just a little punk who joined the Air Force because her mother died of cancer and she couldn’t afford to send herself through college. I worked my way through high school in an auto shop but my stepfather wouldn’t have been able to support me past graduation and I wouldn’t be able to make a working wage as a secretary,” Sarah shrugged, “This would not be the first time someone tried to take liberties and I’m done playing. I was done playing before I came online, I’m only doubly so now.”

“Trickster then,” Jack said.

Sarah’s jaw dropped in shock as she stared at him. He grinned at her and she huffed in indignation, “Go on then.”

“The only red trickster is the Kitsune,” he told her and the actions of the Japanese IOA representative suddenly made a lot more sense.

“And give the man a prize,” Sarah said, sharp and biting.

“You’re not Japanese.”

“You think she gives a shit? She’s a trickster, besides I do have Japanese ancestry.”

“You are whiter than the freshly driven snow.”

“That would be the Irish blood, but the hair is either my father’s influence or the Japanese great-however-many-times-grandfather. I don’t honestly know which.” Sarah told him.

“Does he have black hair, too?” Jack asked 

“I wouldn’t know, I’ve never actually met the man. I just found out who he is,” Sarah took in Jack’s confused expression and elaborated, “I’m the result of a one night stand in an off period of my mother’s on again off again relationship with a rich idiot. The condom broke and she got back with the boyfriend the next day, she didn’t find out that her own birth control had failed until she missed her period. She and the boyfriend got married and they didn’t even know I wasn’t his kid until I came into the world with green eyes. The one night stand didn’t even exchange names.”

“So, how’d you find out now?” He asked.

“I asked the medical staff to run my data against the info you have on the other gene carriers you have on record,” Sarah explained.

“Please tell me he’s not on base, I don’t think I can deal with there being two of you,” John groaned.

“Oh no, he’s on Atlantis and he’s already bonded, which is good. Hopefully, he’s looking after my King,” Sarah said.

Jack’s head hit the desk again as the realization over who her father had to be hit him. Alpha Sentinels were ten percent more likely to produce female sentinel offspring and Sheppard was the only person on the expedition with those trademark green eyes. He really hoped the paternal instinct had kicked in with Sarah’s King because if it hadn’t there was probably going to be hell to pay when Sarah stepped through the gate. Jack did not want to deal with the fall out of a Queen getting into a tiff with the Alpha of her Well because if she kicked him off the city he was pretty sure it would sink. There was no drama like sentinel family drama.

“I’m actually planning to go meet his younger brother this afternoon, he’s an OBGYN and I am bringing him to Atlantis with me,” Sarah continued.

“Bright, no.”

“Bright, yes,” she corrected, “we’re going to need one eventually. May I remind you that Weir didn’t pack condoms and we sent a lot of people into the ultimate ‘thank gods we didn’t die’ sex situation. Granted it’s more ‘thank gods we didn’t get eaten’ but still.”

Jack took a deep breath and straightened to look at her, “Go meet your family, I still need to call Queen Rogers. Consider yourself warned off doing this to anyone again.”

“I have been warned,” Sarah told him with the straightest face she could manage.

Jack rolled his eyes, “Yeah, like anyone’s going to believe you won’t, dismissed.”

“Have a nice day, General,” Sarah said and held out her hand.

They shook and she was out the door before Jack could return the favor. He sighed and rubbed his eyes, the numbing effects of the alcohol already dulling his gift to a low hum rather than a cacophony of noise and emotion. He eyed the drawer again before he decided against another sip and picked up the phone.

\-----

Cheyenne mountain was actually on top of a Well. Most people didn’t know that, in fact most Guides couldn’t sense it but it made getting to DC far easier than catching a ride to the airport and then spending a few hours going out of her mind with the sensory overload that was a plane ride.

Honestly, it was worst than BMT. At least at Lackland they used exclusively Sentinel Safe products. It was slightly more expensive but one out of every twenty latents came online in basic and it was just smarter to use them rather than lose a handful of trainees to med hold every week with a rash at best and severe sensory overload at worst.

Well Stepping was so much simpler. Granted it wasn’t something most Sentinel’s could do, it was a Queen only trait and it required familiarity with the Well but it was useful.

Popping up in the middle of a sidewalk was somewhat risking but incredibly amusing when she startled a jogger and her dog. The other woman stared at her with wide blue eyes and came skidding to a halt. The dog, an adorable cocker spaniel, skittered sideways and then started barking at the top of it’s little lungs.

“Good afternoon,” Sarah said cheerfully and checked something on her phone, “Can you tell me where number 27th on Smith Street is?”

“Uh, sure,” the woman said after a few seconds of rapid blinking and pointed behind her, “it’s that way, three houses down on the left with the red roof.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Sarah said with a blinding smile and waved as she passed the woman and dog.

“Yeah, no problem,” the woman said and started after the black haired woman in utter shock.

Sarah hummed as she walked, one of the random parody songs her flight had come up with ringing around her skull. The neighborhood around her was uncomfortably posh considering she’d grown up with her mother in a small two bedroom apartment. So the neatly kept green lawns and hedges were a completely foreign sight to her. But she was a Queen and she’d been here before, albeit briefly, when Amelia had taken her on a drive to familiarize her with the Well.

The house, when she found it, was big with a gate surrounding the entire property. It was a dark grey with a red roof and large windows. There was a long, paved driveway leading up to the front stoop.

She could sense three people in the house, a latent guide and two latent sentinels, all just on the cusp of coming online. They were strangers to her senses but she could also feel the familiar notes that ran through her own psionic energies and the energies of her Well and every single ATA gene carrier she had ever met.

Nerves gnawed at her belly, butterflies churning and whirling in strange patterns that made her slightly queasy. She took a deep fortifying breathe and glanced down at the Kitsune’s one tailed form. It sat by her feet and gazed at the house with a feeling of deep longing on its energy.

“Are you sure about this?” She asked, “I can’t imagine them taking too kindly to me asking them to give up their youngest to a mission that could very well result in the death of every single person on it.”

_ Ours. Protect. Belong. _

The feelings were like a gunshot passing through their bond. And that was that, Sarah supposed as she watched the Kitsune disappear in a glittering rain of red sparks. She rolled her eyes at the ancient spirit, centuries of guarding Queens and weaving her way through the imperial courts of Asia had not tempered the Kitsune’s flare for the dramatic in the slightest.

She reached out and pushed the button for the intercom. It beeped and rang quietly.

“Yes?” an older man’s voice asked after a minute of soft chimes.

“Hello,” Sarah said, trying her best not to let her voice tremble, “my name is Queen Sarah Bright. I’ve come to introduce myself to the Sheppard family.”

The words were formal and a bit stiff and they clearly shocked the person on the other side of the intercom. There was silence as the man clearly tried to collect himself.

“Um, uh, yes, come in,” the voice said.

The intercom clicked off and the gate gave a similar noise as it swung open to let her in. Sarah smoothed down the blood red skirt of her dress, patted at her head to make sure the pins keeping her crown of braids secure were still in place, and strode down the drive towards the front door.

It opened before she could knock to reveal Patrick Sheppard. He looked tired, like he hadn’t gotten much sleep in the past couple of days and Sarah blinked at him in a slow languid way as she took in his pinched expression. He was wary but most people were when confronted with a Queen for the first time. This probably wasn’t his first time meeting one but Queens didn’t normally show up at your house on a regular Tuesday afternoon.

“Good morning, Queen Bright,” Patrick said sounding exhausted and bowed deeply to her, “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Sarah smiled at him as he straightened and held out a slip of paper towards him. He took it warily and his eyes widened as they skimmed across the page. His eyes jerked up to stare at her in amazement.

“Hello, Papa Patrick,” she said calmly, “you can have someone confirm that if you want, I can understand if you don’t take my word for it.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know where John is. I’ve been looking but I can’t even find where he was supposed to be posted,” Patrick said and Sarah’s smile turned slightly sad.

“Oh don’t worry, I know where he is,” she said and her grandfather looked at her with such hope in her eyes that it hurt her heart to see it, “I’ve actually come to read you and my uncles in on the program he’s a part of. The permission just came through ten minutes ago.”

The Pentagon had been very agreeable on that front. What a military Queen wanted a military Queen got. They were the finest guardians any commander could dream of when it came to her Well and most military bases had been built on or near said Wells. So when she’d only asked for a handful of useful personal and the ability to read in her father’s blood family they’d fallen all over themselves to comply.

Sarah just hoped her supply lists got as many agreeable nods.

“Come in,” Patrick said, “we were just about to have breakfast.”

The young Queen nodded in agreement and moved through the door as her grandfather stepped aside to let her into his house.

**Part 4**

Connor was dreaming, he knew that much. He didn’t normally dream but for the past week and a half he’d been seeing the same thing every time he closed his eyes. There was a woman in the dream, a beautiful woman with black hair and green eyes that glowed a brilliant red when she was angry.

There was a fox sitting by her side, a pretty black thing that twined around her legs like a cat and growled at anyone who got near. It never growled at him tough and as soon as it noticed him it bounded over to paw at his legs. Then the woman would notice him too and smile shy and sly all at once.

“ _ Hello, _ ” she’d breath, voice barely audible to his ears but he could hear her now, a week ago he hadn’t been able to.

And it was a beautiful voice, calm and happy, like silk and chocolate with a little sour sting, like lemons tucked into the tail. She smelled, well he couldn’t quite smell her yet, the scent teased at his nose but she got closer and closer every day and he waited with baited breath for the day he could feel her skin against his own.

Because he knew her, he knew her better than he knew his own name. He didn’t know how but he did and he wanted to figure out why. He reached out towards her every night and every night she shook her head sadly with a tiny smile that made him want to curl up on his bunk with her in his arms and he in hers. He wanted to comfort and hold and kiss and… other things, things he knew he had no right to.

“ _ Not yet, not yet my- _ ” and then her voice would cut out and frown at him.

Her eyes were so sad when she said it, like to was breaking her heart to say it and that just made his desire to hold her even more intense.

He wanted to cry because he knew he had to wait, he didn’t know why but he knew that if he didn’t then something terrible would happen. So he just stood and stared at her for hours upon hours.

Sometimes their surroundings would fade into a green field filled with poppies. Sometimes in a dining room with a table polished to a mirror bright shine. But his favorite was the times when they stood on top of the tallest spire of Atlantis and looked at the sea that cradled her, the silvery blue of the water stretching out as far as the eye could see.

He woke up smiling from those dreams despite the sadness that pooled deep in his gut. Tonight was not one of those nights, tonight his dream was slightly different than normal.

The green eyed woman was still there but her fox wasn’t. Two fox ears perched on top of her head and when she smiled he could see wickedly sharp teeth behind her red lips. Connor’s eyes went wide as realization struck him.

“Queen,” he breathed and she just smiled at him before she moved.

She danced, whirling around him in a swirl of red and black, a coal dark tail trailing behind her like a streamer. He watched her in amazement as patterns began to form in the air in her wake. Binary and glyphs of Ancient twining together in an unbroken design that made his brain stutter to a stop.

And then she was right there, a hairs away from him, so close that he could felt the heat of her against his skin. She smelled like chamomile and chocolate and ozone. His breath trembled in his chest, heartbeat thundering into a rapid pace.

“ _ One more day, one more day. Just wait one more day. Please, can you do that? _ ’ She asked and Connor nodded rapidly.

She smiled again and leaned forward and Connor woke up.

He almost screamed in frustration but was able to rain it in before he woke up his roommate. What had he ever done to deserve this? The worst part was, he couldn’t decide if it had been something awful in a past life or saved an orphanage from burning down or something equally dramatically heroic.

He rolled over onto his back so he could stare at the ceiling. Yup, that was an erection. He groaned and grabbed his pillow to try to smother himself.

Why was this his life again?

“You alright, Adamson?” His roommate asked.

Oh, great, he’d woken up Tylers. Again, why was this his life?

“No.” Connor groaned.

“Dreams again?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Tylers asked, like he did every time and Connor growled into his pillow, “I’ll take that as a no.”

There was a brief, mildly uncomfortable silence as Tylers shifted around in bed. Connor waited until the shifting stopped and listened for the faint snoring that the other marine would deny to his dying breath.

“You wanna go raid Doctor Z’s secret lab?” Tylers asked.

“I have duty tomorrow,” Connor muttered, “just go back to bed.”

“Alright, but if you need anything you can wake me up, you know.”

“I know,” Connor said and then rolled to his feet because the erection wasn’t going away without some sort outside interference.

The shower refused to run cold and not for the first time Connor cursed the seeming sentience of the blasted city. He’d heard other marines complain of cold water no matter what they did but right now he was having the opposite problem. The water was at the perfect temperature for him to just slip his hand down and wrap it around his aching cock.

Connor tried to shake the thought off and braced both of his hands against the cool grey tiling in front of him. He shouldn’t, he couldn’t, not to a girl he’d never even met, who seemed so, so perfect.

Not to a Queen.

Not to his-

No, no, she wasn’t his Queen, he wasn’t her King. He wasn’t even a Guide, didn’t have even a trace of the Gifted gene in him, much to his parents’ poorly concealed disappointment.

But the thought of it still sent up an ache in his chest. He wanted it, that bone deep connection he’d seen form between the Lt. Colonel and Doctor McKay and between the other pairs on the city. It made him feel empty when he saw them together, be it that one time he’d walked in on the Alpha pair making out or the little everyday touches that no one but him seemed to notice.

“ _ One more day, _ ” the words floated past Connor’s ear, just out of reach and a bolt of lust shot up his spine.

It burned like lava and tingled like lightning and Connor gave in. He wrapped one hand around his cock and he could suddenly taste her scent. He whimpered, fist tightening as pleasure coursed through him like an inferno. He could see her in his mind’s eye, all black hair and pale skin and piercing green eyes.

He’d pull her close and kiss her. She’d taste wonderful, he just knew it, and she’d kiss back, all hungry tongue and greedy nips. He’d kiss down her neck and suck on her nipples and she’d moan oh so prettily before pushing him down, down, down. Until his mouth was on her and he could taste his Queen in the back of his throat.

Connor’s hand twisted and he whined as he imaged her shaking apart above and around him. His Queen,  _ his _ , no matter who her King was, he would be hers for that moment and that would be enough even if it was fleeting.

The guilt hit him like a blow but it was swept away by the tidal wave of sensation that washed over him as he came. His legs gave out and his knees hit the floor with a soft thump, the city cushioning his fall.

He shook on hands and knees as he rode out the aftershocks of the most intense orgasm he’d had in a while. And he’d done it to the image of a  _ Queen _ . Connor’s face turned a bright red as he realized what he’d just done.

If there was a Queen that looked like the girl in his dreams he would never be able to look her in the eye, ever. He’d be too embarrassed to even talk to her.

Somehow, Connor managed to clean himself up with a minimum of fumbling and got dried off in record time before he slid back into his pajama pants. He padded out of the bathroom on bare feet and slid back into bed, face still as red as a beetroot.

He had another three hours before he had to wake up for breakfast, he might as well get in some more sleep. The click of a safety being disengaged startled him awake as he began to slip into the edges of sleep and he stare up into Tylers’ hate filled eyes in utter shock.

“Anyone who bows to a Queen is no man.”

Well, fuck it all.

\-----

Uncle David and Matt stared at Sarah like she was some sort of lost artifact or precious flower that had mysteriously appeared in their dining room and began to talk. In all fairness, she kind of was but their expressions were making it hard not to laugh at them.

“So, do you want to come? It’s a wonderful opportunity, we need an OBGYN and a navy seal is never a bad addition to a floating city.”

“Wait, what?” Uncle Matt asked after a few moments utter of disbelief.

“You had me at spaceships, where do I sign?” Uncle David asked.

“No,” Papa Patrick said, then took in his sons’ expressions and the look of unimpressed afront on his granddaughter’s face and visibly gave in, “I’m not going to win this argument am I? I take it you’re the Queen that came online during that Sons of Ra debacle at the Air Force Graduation eight months ago?”

“Yes, Papa Patrick,” Sarah said and rubbed at the back of her neck, “we had a Sentinel Corps class graduating with us and they had two female sentinels in that class. The… temptation? Insult? Was too much for them to bare.”

“They bit off more than they could chew, now didn’t they?” Uncle David asked with a grin.

Sarah gave him a fox’s smile and blinked innocently, “Oh, whatever do you mean, Uncle mine?”

All three of the men snorted. Luckily it was quiet enough that Sarah heard the gunshot, barely but she still caught it on the edge of her hearing and time stopped.

She didn’t quite know how the time stops worked, just that they did and she couldn’t control them. Amelia had finally settled on the explanation that time was ultimate illusion but since it was a part of the fabric of the universe no mortal could mess with it. The Kitsune was the one that controlled them but Sarah was the one who moved through them.

The bullet, the sniper’s bullet was a meter away from her grandfather’s face. Sarah growled in utter fury and stood to walk over to where the bullet was. She followed the trajectory back to the glint of the scope up on the roof of a house across the street. Her eyes narrowed at the would be assassin’s hat. He actually had the eye of Ra embroidered on his black hat in bright golden thread.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Sarah said with narrowed eyes and looked at the bullet.

She carefully flipped the bullet end over end until it pointed back towards the sniper and flicked it with her middle finger.

Time abruptly restarted itself and the Son of Ra’s scream of pain made Sarah grin. She turned to look a her family, who staring at hr in shock.

“So, should we continue this conversation somewhere more secure?” Sarah asked.

“That is an excellent idea,” Papa Patrick said hesitantly, “after we call the cops.”

“Oh, right,” Sarah said and pulled out her cell phone to dial a very specific number.

“General O’Neill,” O’Neill sounded tired, she’d probably just woken him up.

“Good morning, sir, it’s Queen Bright,” Sarah chirped and cackled quietly at the groan of utter horror coming from the other side of the line.

**Part 5**

Papa Patrick and General O’Neill’s first meeting was about as entertaining as Sarah had thought it would be, albeit for a completely be it for a completely different reason. She had thought they would meet and she’d get to watch someone else give a deserving party a chewing out for once, she honestly was curious if the ability was genetic because that would be amazing. Also awful, if she ever had children that turned into teenage angst balls.

Instead of Jack getting his well deserved verbal beat down, which would have been priceless and she would have treasured the memory forever, he took one look at Papa Patrick and tripped over his own feet. He’d stumbled and straightened in an attempt to make it look like he had meant for that to happen. She and her Uncles had all suppressed a snort of amusement at the sight of General O’Neill trying to look suave in a slightly wrinkled flight suit.

Papa Patrick had just stepped forward and extended a hand towards O’Neill. He was staring at the other man like he wanted to eat him and Sarah had gotten only the tiniest inkling of a warning before the two men touched.

The world around her had abruptly warped and she’d been left blinking back iridescent indigo shimmers as the beginnings of a bond began to settle around her. Papa Patrick had come online at the first touch of his guide’s skin against his own. It was every single romantic cliché wrapped up into one moment and she was left wondering if the universe hate or loved her.

The two fully grown, well aged men had stared at each other with wide eyes as the reality of their situation began to sink in.

“Uh,” O’Neill said, intelligently.

“W-well, then,” Papa Patrick had stuttered out in clear shock.

And Sarah decided that the universe loved her because what followed was the most entertaining thing she had seen in weeks. The only thing that could top Patrick trying to find a way to yell at his guide without actually yelling at his guide and O’Neill trying to figure out how to admit that he’d let his sentinel’s son go on a suicide mission was that one video of the husky puppies that had made Amelia’s cat fall off the couch.

She wished she had popcorn and from the looks on her Uncle’s faces, they agreed with her. The “conversation” slowly devolved into wordless staring that quickly shifted from awkward to charged. Sarah’s eyes narrowed, now that just wouldn’t do now would it.

“So, Papa O’Neill,” Sarah chirped and nearly cackled at the look of utter horror that passed across the general’s face, “do you have a date on when I’m going through the Gate?”

Papa O’Neill, and she was going to use that name at every opportunity just to annoy him, cleared his throat and let go of Papa Patrick’s hand. Good, that had been getting awkward for everyone in the vicinity.

“Yes, the IOA has managed to come to the decision that it would be better to get you onto Atlantis as quickly as possible,” O’Neill said, “since this probably won’t be the last attempt made on you by the Sons of Ra.”

“You mean they want me off planet so I’ll stop pointing out their hypocrisies to their face,” Sarah deadpanned.

“That might also be a factor,” the general’s eyes kept creeping back towards Patrick, who hadn’t taken his eyes off of the other man since he laid eyes on him, “How did you manage to get the French representative’s phone to sing the Brexit song every time it turns on by the way? Our computer techs are beyond impressed.”

“I have friends in interesting places,” Sarah said with a smile.

“I don’t want to know,” O’Neill groaned.

“No, you probably don’t.”

“Three days. They want you through the Gate with everyone you want with you in three days.”

“And my supply list?” Sarah asked with a sharp toothed smile.

The general stared her down, one eyebrow quirking up towards his hairline, “I’m working on it, it’s going to take a bit of time but I should have everything by next week.”

Sarah huffed in irritation and shook her head in irritation. She opened her mouth to let out a scathing comment but paused halfway through the first syllable. Something was wrong, terribly, awfully wrong but she couldn’t quite put her finger on the sensation.

“Queen Bright?” O’Neill asked.

Sarah’s head cocked to one side as she searched through her senses to try and find the source of the uneasy, queasy sensation in her energies. But the general was starting to look worried.

“Something’s off,” the black haired girl said and went deeper, deeper, “I can’t quite… It’s on the tip of my…OH SHIT!”

The last bit was a scream because she had finally located where the sensation was coming from. It was coming from the thread thin connection she had to her King. He was terrified, a bone deep terror that was strong enough to reach Sarah all the way across two Galaxies and the void between. And that terror, that spine chilling, heart rending terror was about to bring him online.

If a normal onlining would have caused the city to sink Sarah didn’t know what an abrupt, fear filled one would do. And she didn’t want to find out.

She turned and bolted down the hall towards the stairs. She needed to get to the Gate room and she needed to get to it now.

“Sarah?!” Four voices called at once.

“He’s about to come online!” Sarah roared over her shoulder, “I don’t want to see Atlantis sink for real any more than you do!”

She hit the stairs to the sound of O’Neill cursing and hitting his radio’s talk button. She threw herself over the stairs railing and down two full flights before she caught the edge of the landing she needed.

Sarah hauled herself up over the edge and bolted through the door into the hall that let to the Gate. She could hear the dialing sequence start up and then felt her Spirit rip itself free of her skin.

The Kitsune bounded up the ramp towards the Gate and jumped through as the wormhole stabilized, cries of shock and horror following her through. She came out the other side screaming at the top of her lungs, shocking the entirety of the Gate room into silence.

\-----

“Why?” Connor asked in as steady a voice as he could manage, still trying to shake off the last vestiges of sleep that clung to his mind, “Tylers, put the gun down.”

He tried to sit up.

“Uh-uh-uh,” Tylers said and pressed the gun against Connor’s chest, right above his heart, “you’re going to stay right there, bitch’s boy.”

Connor went very still as the first stirrings of fear lit him up from the inside. He knew Tylers wouldn’t shoot him, they were friends, had been since Tylers had switched rooms to avoid his original roommate’s bad habit of sexiling him every other night. But then again, Connor hadn’t thought that Tylers would point a gun at him either.

And then there was the suspicious shine to the blond boy’s eyes. The hint of something unhinged lurking beneath that angelic surface unsettled him. Where had this come from? He should have noticed this earlier but he hadn’t and this couldn’t be a new development.

Connor wracked his brain, trying to remember if there had been any point where Tylers had changed, where he had acted differently from how he’d been acting for the past seven months in which they’d been rooming together. It had to have started when the dreams did, that was the only thing Connor could think of that had changed.

Tylers had been slightly withdrawn after the first on but Connor just thought that was a reaction to him being a bit weird about them and Tylers wanting to give him space to sort it out. But then Tylers had gotten very interested in the dreams.

Bitch’s boy. That was a very distinct turn of phrase and the only people Connor could think of who used that phrase…

“You’re a Son of Ra, that’s what Sons of Ra call King,” Connor marveled as disgust began to pool in the bottom of his stomach, “How can you be a part of the SGC and still support that organization?”

“The snakes were not the true gods, they stole the images of our gods and twisted them to fit their own ends,” Tyler said, completely missing the entire point of what Connor had meant by about a mile.

Connor had no words for what had just been spoken as he stared at the asshole with the gun in utter shock. How had the SGC missed this of all things? For that matter, how did the marines? There was no way someone hadn’t noticed Tylers’ opinions on Queens before and that particular hatred went hand in hand with the Sons’ other goal, to completely eliminate all female Gifted. Or at least make it so that the only Gifted woman who came online were guides.

It was an impossible task, a fool’s errand that would never come to pass. But that was how it was with fanatics, they latched onto an idea, an ideal and followed it so blindly they couldn’t see the cliff coming before they fell.

“You’re insane,” Connor said, voice as cool as the grave, “You’re absolutely stark raving mad. I don’t have a drop of the Gift in my blood. I’ve been tested, I can’t be a King.”

A manic grin spread across Tylers’ face, “Oh, but you are. You’ve been having the dreams for over a week now, I can feel the imprint of her all over you-” and wow that was new that Connor did not need to hear coming out of Tylers’ mouth, “-and the only unbound Queen on Earth is that fox bitch that killed my big brother. She’s coming here, you know, sometime in the next week I’ll bet. The IOA just rolled over and flung open their legs for a chance to get a bitch out here and she’ll walk into Gate room and realize her King is dead. I’ll kill you right in front of her, make it last with a gut shot or maybe a fast acting poison and then she’ll reveal her true colors to everyone. Nothing but beasts, nothing but beasts.”

Connor held very still as the words sunk in and terror like he’d never known before surged in his chest. He was going to die, worst Tylers would kill him in front of a Queen and, if what Tylers said was true, she’d go on a rampage. Queens who lost their King before the bond could solidify or even form went black. They gave into the dark side of the Gift and lost themselves to it, drowned themselves in it to escape the pain.

There was a reason Dragon Queens were so feared, even today, centuries after the last time a Dragon’s King had died. The Queen had raised the city where his killers had lived to the ground and ripped her own Well from the Earth before going on to kill two other Queens and their Kings. She’d finally been put down by three of the most powerful Queens to date and they hadn’t escaped unscathed either. The Fae Queen had died of her wounds, the Sphinx had lost one of her arms, and the Raiju hadn’t taken a Queen since, most suspected she never would again.

But, if Connor’s suspicions were correct and this Queen was the Kitsune Queen even that would pale in her wrath. She had been around a long, long time and in all those millennia only once had Kitsune flipped to Nogitsune. It hadn’t been a massacre, the Nogitsune was to clever for that. Instead she’d upended Japan into chaos the likes of which the country had never seen and would hopefully never see again.

No one had even known it was her pulling the strings until the man who had killed her King had stumbled into the throne room of the Imperial Palace to see the Kitsune before the throne in robes of blood red, his families head’s at her feet. As the story went, she had turned to the Emperor and bowed before shifting one last time to turn and eat the man who had so wronged her. Then, she had died under the blade of a Kusanagi sentinel, submitting to the end willingly with a fox’s smile on her face.

While Connor would probably feel honored to have a Queen do that for him, he didn’t want her to have to suffer through that or for the two Colonels to have to see that. Sheppard would blame himself and Sumner just didn’t need to deal with that kind of bullshit, he dealt with enough as it was. A Queen leading the Wraith across the galaxy on a merry goose chase would probably give him a heart attack.

“You’ll be dead too,” Connor pointed out, hoping that the realization of his own mortality would snap Tylers out of this insanity.

Instead, the man got a dreamy look in his eyes that made Connor shiver. That just wasn’t right, no one should be that excited about the prospect of death, it was just wrong. The crazy was strong with this one and Connor didn’t think he would be able to reach him.

Alright, stalling for time then. That was a totally valid strategy, even though his skull was beginning to throb in time with his heartbeat.

“Then I will die knowing that I was able to foil the bitches’ plans and go into Ra’s loving arms without a second glance,” Tylers breathed and then his face hardened, “Now, get up. You need to mysteriously disappear between now and when our shift starts.”

Connor somehow managed to stall for a little more time as his headache got worse and worse. Stumbling out of bed, tripping over his own feet, moving towards the door as slowly as possible, fumbling the door handle.

They were finally out into the hall and Connor could barely think, but he had to come up with a plan, had to when he heard the scream and the world all seemed to click into place when he hadn’t even known it was out of alignment.

**Part 6**

Tylers flinched and Connor moved without thought, without instinct, without true knowledge of what he was doing. He ducked, dropping to the floor in one smooth movement and a gunshot rang out through the hallway. The old children’s song ringing through his head, he’d heard that scream before, not so loud, not so large but he’d lived around foxes before and he knew what they sounded like.

_ Kitsune queen, trickster queen, bound to those who rule. Hide my queen, bide your time dear queen, and prove them all for fools. Crown of bones upon your head, ashes in your soul. If your King is found to be dead, no one is more cruel. Kitsune queen, trickster queen, dancing in the rain. Watch my queen, plot dear queen, and you’ll see him to his grave. _

Connor came up under Tylers’ gun arm and drove his knee into the other man’s gut with all the force he could manage. Which was actually quite a bit harder than he had been able to yesterday. It sent Tylers stumbling back, coughing and retching but he dropped the gun, which had been the point.

Connor lunged for it as he heard thundering paws charging down the hall  and then his head felt like it split open. He almost screamed but kept it trapped behind his teeth because he didn’t want the Kitsune to overreact. Granted an overreaction might be warranted at this point but still, it was the principle of the thing.

Tylers got to his feet just as the Kitsune burst onto the scene, fur as black as midnight and all nine tails lashing behind her. Connor stared at her in amazement as she padded forward with a menacing grace that made him shiver in pleasure. The idiot on the other hand screamed in terror and grabbed for a knife on his belt. He drew it and pointed it at the Kitsune, hand trembling.

The Kitsune huffed in irritation and growled at him. It was more irritation that warning, she was only half focused on him, the rest of her attention on Connor and the splitting pain that had taken up residence in his skull. She moved forward to stand over the brunette and nose at him in an attempt to find the source of his pain.

She didn’t see the knife flip in Tylers’ hand lightning quick but Connor did and he yelped in surprise as the blonde’s arm came up to throw. The Kitsune’s head came up as fast as a cobra’s strike and she barked.

The sound reverberated around the hallway, echoing off of walls and bouncing back on itself, doubling itself again and again until it shook all who heard it to their very bones. Tylers froze as if caught in amber and the knife fell from numb fingers as he stared at something in mute horror.

“ _ Brother, _ ” a man’s voice called out from thin air, “ _ Brother, help me! Help me! Help me! _ ”

“Adam,” Tylers choked out, shaking his head, “you’re dead. You can’t be here.”

“ _ Help me! Help me, please! Please!” _ the voice cried, wet in a way Connor had learned to associate with someone breathing their own blood.

Oh, oh that was just plain cruel.

“Stop,” Connor gasped out past the pain.

The Kitsune looked down at him with red eyes, red like rubies, red like blood. She waited for an explanation and Connor swallowed as nerves clawed their way up into his throat.

“It’s cruel, no one deserves that. Stop, ” he said firmly as the pain ebbed slightly and the Kitsune nodded reluctantly.

Tylers gasped as the visage of his brother dying vanished and the Kitsune stepped over Connor and towards him. He backed up as the Kitsune melted into a woman with black hair and piercing green eyes, dressed in robes of the darkest red. The Kitsune’s ears still perched on the top of her and a single black tail peeking out from the back of her clothes. She was beautiful, radiant in a way that neither men had ever seen before, hypnotic if one was unwary.

The blonde stared in awe and fought to stay on his feet as the goddess before him gilded towards him, a fan resting in the palm of her hand. A beautiful, delicate thing that held the visage of her Spirit in the crimson folds.

“You’re a sensitive,” the Queen breathed and then she paused, “no, that’s wrong. There is something off about you. I didn’t see it before but it’s clearer now.”

And then Tylers’ knees did buckle. He bowed low until his forehead touched the ground and stayed like that, trembling. Connor winced as the pain began to come back and he flipped over, curling around in an attempt to get onto his knees before the pain took over once more.

The Queen frowned down at the trembling boy as he crawled forward and pressed his lips to the edge of her robe. She pulled back, a look of pure shock on her face, and Tylers whimpered. Connor and the Queen winced, almost imperceptibly.

The Queen visibly straightened and barked out, “Tell me,” in a voice that brooked no argument.

Tylers came up on his knees to stare at the Queen with watery grey eye, “Kill me! It hurts, it hurts so bad! Kill me, kill me please!”

“You’re Suppressed,” the Queen realized, shock coloring her voice.

Connor felt sick and it wasn’t just the pain making him nauseous. Suppressants were illegal for a reason, only used in the most dire of circumstances and then only the short term meds that lasted a day at most. The empathic or sensory backlash from a longer lasting dose was enough to drive most people mad. If Tylers was a sentinel the stress and close quarters of Atlantis’s warzone status would have driven him up the wall with the treat of the Wraith just on the edge of his senses.

But that made no sense. Why would a Son of Ra Suppress a Sentinel’s senses and abilities? The Sons believed that male sentinels were demigods, blessed by their god and elevated above mere mortals.

“Guide,” the Queen breathed in shock and her fan snapped open so she could use it to cover her shock, “Who put you on Suppressants?”

The empathic overload of the Wraith had to be pure torture to someone half online. Connor had found being around them uncomfortable and he hadn’t even started coming online until just now.

“Father, the Father did,” Tylers gasped out, like the words were being wrenched out of him, “Kill me. End it. End it!”

“No,” the Queen snapped and her fan cracked shut with a finality.

Tylers looked up at her with wide, hopeless eyes as her arm swung up and around. The fan struck his temple with minimal force and he crumbled to the floor, unconscious. The Queen whirled and rushed back over to Connor.

She fell to her knees with a grace he could have never manage and pulled him into her lap. The headache eased slightly but his eyes still slid shut, trying to push back the agony in his head.

“Shh, shh,” the Queen crooned, “Stay with me! Stay with me gods damn it! You can’t let the Well in now, not yet! One more second, one more minute! It’s almost done!”

And that was panic in her voice, enough panic that it forced Connor to fight past the pain and open his eyes.

Red. All he saw was red cascading around him in a wave of energy and it made him shake at the sight of a Queen’s essence, his Queen’s essence so blatantly on display as it reached out toward him and towards the air around him, burrowing deep into the Well and into him until the connection between her and them both was strong enough that this wouldn’t end in drowning.

He held on, he held on with all his might as he felt the pain ease, ease, and vanish to be replaced by a feeling of belonging so deep but just out of reach.

“Now!” his Queen commanded and he let go and fell into her.

Sarah breathed a sigh of relief as the bond snapped into place and her King fell unconscious. He’d wake up in a few minutes and then they’d talk and probably have incredibly hot sex but for now the Well needed him.

Plus, she had no wish to have wild monkey sex in front of her father and he was coming down the hall with what looked like the entire sentinel population of Atlantis at his back. She grinned at him and cradled her King closer to her chest as the Alpha of her Well came up short.

“Hi, Dad!” She chirped, “I hope you don’t mind but I’m not going to be able to report in immediately on account on my newly online King and the Suppressed guide unconscious on the floor. If you could get him medical attention that would be great.”

And, Sheppard realized with dawning horror, O’Niell’s message that Queen Bright was his problem now suddenly made so much more sense.

**Author's Note:**

> Also, I've signed up for Jilly's Quantum Bang Challenge, so be expecting that in a few months, go check out the site, it's quantumbang.org. It's a fix-it bang and I'm having a lot of fun with the fic I'm writing so far.


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